A reason for the thick air of paranoia is that now, everyone knows someone that has been laid off. Simply so many that it is starting to hit home. Estimates are near 2008, and if you lived through that you know that help is not coming on a timescale that you could have to massively change your life.

You lose your job, two years go by, time to sell you your house and move. Hiring is a total circus right now as well, being subjected to a five course hiring obstacle course is a lot of time that you're burning your savings and or missing other opportunities. Compare this to nearly any time since 2012 when it was at most three, and maybe ONE was a technical.

Most people do not save in America, and even when you are employed the health care system does not take great care of you. All of this "choice" is presented as capitalism working, but really it's a set of land mines where two large entities decide how much they want to take from you (the hospital, and the insurance company). Since the pricing is opaque and the amount the insurance company pays is capricious, vaya con dios.

The line feels like don't get sick, and your own country has thrown you to the wolves (they're in on it). Similar to unemployment, and the other "safety nets" not managed centrally or well. Massive delays, and your mortgage is due.

Also, you are paying for all of these safety nets all the time when you are making money, but it is deeply gated when you need it. Sorry for the paragraphs, but watching a friend go through this now and it's very wild.

If you're able to save more than 10%/m, you are very ahead of the game.

As for USA losing the Mandate of Heaven, even people from other countries seem sad to see it happening. Informally, two different groups of Portuguese people I've talked to in the last two weeks in Lisbon had a sentiment of "how could this have happened to such a great country?" Mostly due to the extreme news reports coming from the US, ICE, war, rhetoric etc.